Shōjo

is a term used in English to refer to manga and anime aimed at a female audience between the ages of 10 and 18. The term is a transliteration of the Japanese 少女, literally Young girl. Works aimed at this target audience are generally seen as melodramatic stories of romance usually with a female protagonist, and drawn in a flowing style where beautiful characters with huge, intricately drawn eyes become spontaneously surrounded by flowers, stars, and/or bubbles. Still, shōjo works cover a huge range of subjects, from historical drama to science fiction and by no means do all adhere to the same artistic sensibilities or conventions. Overall, shōjo is not a style or a genre but a target demographic. The concept of the "shoujo" herself, between childhood and adulthood began around the 1920s. Shoujo manga borrows from the earlier tradition of shoujo shousetsu - girls' fiction. Shōjo manga has its roots in the early Shōwa era, for example Machiko Hasegawa's Nakayoshi Techō and Shosuke...